What’s the best way to get a buyer’s attention, move deals quickly through the buying cycle, and increase close rates? Follow these five fundamental steps. (For a handy summary of these steps, download our tip sheet, "5 Steps to Close More Deals.")
It’s happened to the best of us. You tell a prospect how much your product or service costs and they respond with silence. This is known as “sticker shock” and if you’ve done your job as a salesperson, your customer should never experience this.
What makes sales management such a tough job? There are many reasons, but a very basic one is that your success as a B2B sales manager depends on the performance of your sales team. If your sales team doesn’t perform well and make quota—despite your best efforts to coach, motivate, support, mentor, and lead—then you can’t succeed.
It’s every sales manager’s nightmare. While reviewing the sales team’s monthly sales forecasts, too many opportunities forecasted to close this month at 90% probability are deals that were previously forecasted to close at similar rates of probability. Why so little progress in closing these deals?
Recently I was reading Dr. Seuss’ “The Lorax” with my six-year-old daughter. In the book, the character of the Once-ler says, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.” It struck me that this concept is also applicable in the realm of B2B sales and marketing.
At one time or another, everyone in sales and marketing has shared something in common with the character Sheldon on the Big Bang Theory. Although you might not be a former child prodigy with a genius-level IQ, I’m willing to bet that you’ve created marketing materials or had conversations with customers that sound very similar to this:
I’d like to focus on how you can systematically create great content in your sales proposals. After all, even the most beautiful and well-designed sales proposals will fall flat on their face if they’re not backed by well-written content.
What are two words that get every salesperson’s pulse racing? Budget approval. Want to know the secret to securing budget approval? Simple. Create the right kind of business case to include with your proposal. The right kind of business case will win the respect and approval of the CFO (or whomever your stakeholder/prospect will request budget approval from). However, not every selling situation requires the same kind of business case. In general, there are three levels of selling situations, and each requires a different kind of business case: simple, standard, or in-depth. Here’s a breakdown of each one.
Ask the VP of Sales and the VP of Marketing at any company how well their teams get along and you’ll likely find some level of friction. Salespeople complain that marketing doesn’t provide enough leads, and that leads are not “sales ready.” Marketing complains that salespeople fail to follow up on leads properly and bungle their own opportunities. The complaints have been around for some time and there’s a bit of truth on each side. One thing is clear: if companies want to maximize revenue potential, they need to make sure sales and marketing are putting forth a coordinated effort. Here are five solutions to get your sales and marketing teams on the same page.
Do you know the difference between “ROI” (return on investment) and “ROMI” (return on marketing investment)? Occasionally we’ve noticed that some of our discussions about ROI have led to some confusion among our readers. I suspect this is because when people hear “ROI” and “marketing” they primarily think of “return on marketing investment” (ROMI).
